THE LEADER S ROLE IN CMMI PROCESS IMPROVEMENT


In CMMI-based process improvement, everyone involved falls into essentially one of three roles:

  1. Sponsor (that would be you)

  2. Change agent (sometimes you)

  3. Target, which can be either a victim or participant (you, but only if you abdicate your role as a sponsor and leader)

Those of us who regularly attend process improvement conferences such as the SEPG conference have been subjected to an endless litany of war stories about executives and senior managers who don t really act as good sponsors of the organization s process improvement work. Fortunately for you, you re not at these conferences to hear it. The people who work for you go to these gatherings and they attribute your lack of sponsorship and process improvement leadership to lots of things, including:

  • You are malicious.

  • You are arrogant .

  • You are incompetent.

Based on the experience of my consulting firm working directly with executives and senior managers, they are wrong; you are none of those things. In fact, most of you actually want to be a good sponsor of change. You really want the CMMI effort to succeed and you want to have contributed to that success. The problem is that you really don t know what to do and your position as an executive or senior manager doesn t allow you to admit that you don t know what to do.

But before we get into specific techniques for leading process improvement in your organization, you should establish a fundamental understanding of your role in such an endeavor, the role of the sponsor. [46] In CMMI-based process improvement, you as the sponsor, do all of the following.

You own the change and communicate that ownership to everyone involved. The outward, public manifestation of this is standing in front of people and saying something like, I own this change. You will get the credit for the success, but I will be responsible for failures because I am the leader. The buck stops here.

You select and empower qualified change agents to manage the change implementation. This means you guide the establishment of a process focus team within your organization and you allocate resources to that function. You should understand the skills and knowledge required for this work, find those people, recruit them, and give them incentive to be a part of the effort. If you need help understanding the skills and knowledge needed, read Establishing the Process Improvement Project Team in Chapter 3 ” Managing the Process Improvement Project.

You establish an infrastructure to manage the change implementation. This means that you lead the establishment of new organizational structures, budgets , office space, and tools and equipment for the people involved in process improvement. You give them a home, not a tent.

You commit the resources that are required for success. Ah, here s the rub, money! You can t even begin to imagine how many of your peers in the executive and senior management ranks think that CMMI-based process improvement is free. They will actually ask people to do that process stuff on their own time and then they will be dismayed and confused when a year later no progress has been made toward the CMMI goal. As an engineer or lower level manager, you knew the axiom that the only things that are important in an organization are those things which get funded . Money talks and talk walks. It doesn t matter how many times you say that CMMI and process improvement are important, if it doesn t come with money, it won t come at all.

You keep the change in the consciousness of all subordinate reinforcing sponsors and targets. This means incorporating CMMI-based process work into your normal, everyday tasks . Don t treat it different from any other high priority, high visibility project or program that is underway. This effort is doing nothing less than delivering a process system that is going to ensure the long- term viability of the enterprise. Wouldn t you want a regular status on that project s progress and accomplishments?

You modify the reward system to encourage targets to change. It s this simple. Until process improvement shows up in the annual objectives, performance reviews, raises, promotions, and bonuses of people, or in public recognition, there will be no process improvement in your organization. Here s a precaution: there s a really ugly, cynical side to this story. If the only rewards, such as financial bonuses, go to you and other executive and senior managers for achieving CMMI goals, you will probably win in the short term. The organization will achieve its goals on the backs of people who go unrewarded and you will get your bonus. However, in the long term, you and the organization lose because eventually the talent you rely on for success gets wiser and looks for an exit.

You model any changes in behavior that you want others to adopt. This is the hardest role of all because it means finding the courage, intelligence, initiative, and integrity within yourself to change your own behaviors, long before you expect others to change. Regardless of what you ve been trained to think, when the people who report to you are forced to choose between following your words and modeling your behavior, they will model your behavior every time. Why? Because it works for you and they want to be where you are. There are proven techniques for modifying your own behavior, but that is many other books and courses.

[46] This reference and subsequent references are adapted from SEI s course, Managing Technological Change, which adapted materials developed by Implementation Management Associates, Golden, CO.




Real Process Improvement Using the CMMI
Real Process Improvement Using the CMMI
ISBN: 0849321093
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 110
Authors: Michael West

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